# Mixing inside the byte budget The mix in Soundfish is authored, not monitored: track volume, sends, pan, cutoff, and the shared reverb and delay live in the URL and count toward its bytes. Set them once in compose, then adjust with `set-volume`, `set-send`, `set-pan`, `set-cutoff`, and `set-effects`. ## Register per role | Role | Register | Why | | --- | --- | --- | | Kick | 36 or 35 | one fundamental below 120 Hz | | Sub or 808 bass | C1 to C2 (24 to 36) | sits under the kick; long notes, no sends | | Bass | C1 to C3 (24 to 48) | `lint` flags bass notes above C3 (`bass-register`) | | Chords | C4 to C6 (60 to 84) | a chord tone below C4 that doubles the bass root muddies both (`chord-register`) | | Pad | C3 to C5 with `cut` 5,000 to 7,000 | the filter keeps the pad off the bass | | Lead | C4 to C6 | above the chords' top note or between the chord stabs | | Hats and cymbals | 42, 44, 46, 49, 51 | accents carry the groove | `analyze` prints each track's lowest and highest pitch and its register band; `transpose ±12` moves a whole track an octave. ## Accents Hats alternate strong and weak: `x` (110) on the downbeats and `o` (90) on the offbeats in a row, or `@70/95` to set the pair. `accent --pattern 100,70,85,70` scales every event on the track by the percentage at its step, cycling the pattern (four values give one per sixteenth of a beat). Snare backbeats at 100 to 115, ghosts at 55 to 70. Chords at 90 to 100, the last chord of a phrase 10 lower. ## Volume and headroom - A track without `vol` is 10,000 (the editor starts new tracks at 8,000, drums 9,000). Write `vol 8000` on notes tracks and `vol 9000` on drums. The master has a fixed trim and a hard ceiling; eight tracks at 10,000 sit in that ceiling (`volume-headroom`). - Bass and kick are the loudest sources; everything else sits 1,000 to 3,000 below them. Pads 5,500 to 6,500, keys 6,500 to 7,500, leads 5,500 to 7,000. - `render --dry` (repository checkout only) prints per-track peak, RMS, crest factor, and the share of energy below 120 Hz, 120 to 500 Hz, 500 Hz to 2 kHz, and above 2 kHz. A bass with more than half of its energy above 500 Hz is not doing a bass's job (`bass-band`); a mix led below 120 Hz by a pad is crowded (`sub-band-crowding`); a dry peak at 1.00 clips (`mix-clipping`). ## Sends and returns | Control | Range | Default | Use | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | `rev` (track reverb send) | 0 to 10,000 | 0 | keys and pads 2,000 to 3,500; leads 1,500 to 2,500; snare 500 to 1,500; kick and bass 0 | | `del` (track delay send) | 0 to 10,000 | 0 | leads and stabs 1,500 to 3,000; keys 1,000 to 2,000; kick and bass 0 | | `fx reverb` (return) | 0 to 10,000 | 2,000 | 1,500 dry pop; 3,500 ambient | | `fx delay` (return) | 0 to 10,000 | 2,500 | how loud the repeats come back | | `fx feedback` | 0 to 9,500 | 3,500 | above 6,000 the repeats pile up (`delay-feedback`) | | `fx time` | 62 to 4,000 milli-beats | 500 | see the presets | `low-end-send` fires when a bass track or a drums track with a kick carries a send: `set-send --reverb 0 --delay 0`. ## Delay presets Delay time is in milli-beats, so the presets hold at every tempo. | `fx time` | Note value | Feel | | ---: | --- | --- | | 250 | sixteenth | slap, thickening | | 333 | triplet eighth | shuffle, dub | | 500 | eighth | the default; house and pop | | 750 | dotted eighth | the classic lead delay | | 1,000 | quarter | echo, ballads | | 1,500 | dotted quarter | long ambient repeats | ## Pan and cutoff - `pan` runs 0 (left) to 10,000 (right); 5,000 is center. Keep kick, snare, bass, and the lead centered. Hats 4,000 or 6,000, keys 4,200 to 5,800, a second keys or guitar part on the opposite side. - `cut` is a low-pass from 200 Hz (0) to 20 kHz (10,000) on a logarithmic scale: 2,500 is about 630 Hz, 5,000 is 2 kHz, 7,500 about 6.3 kHz. Pads at 5,000 to 7,000, leads 4,000 to 8,000, keys 7,000 to 9,000; drums and bass open (10,000) unless you want a dark lo-fi kit at 6,000. - Both are automatable: `set-cutoff --points 0:2000:linear,63:10000` sweeps a pad open over four bars. ## Swing `swing N` delays every odd sixteenth by N percent of half a step. 0 is straight (house, techno, orchestral); 15 to 35 loosens boom-bap and breaks; 55 to 66 is a shuffle or triplet feel (jazz, garage). Swing is a document setting, so every track shares it. ## Byte budget - A loop holds at most 24,493 canonical bytes; that is the binding limit. The event cap (832 per loop, 512 per track) is secondary. `analyze` prints bytes used and `lint` warns above 80% (`byte-budget`). - An event costs about 22 bytes; an automation point about 10; an extra track about 100 before its events; derived lineage and long titles more. Sixteen bars of four dense tracks fit; sixteen bars of sixteen dense tracks do not. - To fit: `thin --to-bytes 20000` drops the quietest events first, shorten names, remove unused tracks, replace per-event repetition with fewer bars and `double`, or split the arrangement into a song of shorter loops.